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Rating: "And who is this?", many will ask. Trying to explain it to you, I'll tell you that his latest creation has been a critical success. A minstrel, through and through, very unconventional, the guy has been in the music world for quite a while, and he did his groundwork long ago. A guitarist for everyone, he has collaborated as a session man with the "big names" in the charts like, among others, Robbie Williams, Pulp (with whom, by the way, he has a connection that goes beyond the occasional appearance) and also Robert Plant, the latest in chronological order. He had something up his sleeve for quite some time but was just waiting for the right moment to go solo. In 2001, he released his first work: and the one I'm talking about is already the third in four years (fourth if you consider the eponymous mini-album released at the start of his career). Shy and reserved, anti-celebrity by nature, he doesn't chase success, he doesn't crave media and public attention: he goes straight on his path, offering his music which, despite the years passing peacefully, is more or less, always the same. Made of love songs and nothing more, because that's what he wants to propose.
Nothing new, since the theme is the same chosen by 99.9% of those who make music. But he adds "that" something extra which makes the difference, even in the lyrics. Clearly drawing inspiration from American music of the fifties and sixties, made by the likes of Presley, Orbison, Cash, and Boone, crafting tracks with a country and country/western flavor especially in "Just Like The Rain" and "I Sleep Alone," he creates a style so unspecified and indecipherable that it challenges anyone trying to label it and confine his music within a precise definition. There's also space for some distant echoes of the sounds of his homeland, England, and for that Cohen who seems always to be watching from around the corner in "The Ocean," the best piece in my view. He's often poignant and melancholic with his voice, as in "Tonight" and "Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feat": but all this is not synonymous with sadness. With the exception of "Coles Corner," opening and first single released where strings triumph, on all tracks, his instrument is in the foreground. Predominant but not invasive, guitars of all types and with all distortions and effects: as in "Hotel Room," where you can hear sounds dear to Los Indios Tabajaras again (if you know them, you understand where I want to go with this review). The concluding and instrumental "Last Orders" lives between the echoes of a ghostly piano and strange reverberations resembling the turbulent wind that sweeps Coles Corner in Sheffield, a real place in the native city of our subject, a meeting place, a crossroads of many stories, many tales, of ordinary lives, of alternating fortunes and vicissitudes.
The production of Hawley, in short, brings us back to those singers we often see, comparing them with the current music scene, as dinosaurs. Perhaps this return to the past is his strong point: in an era where everyone expects the ingenious innovation, he proposes, revised and corrected, the old, which we too often forget and deny as the father of the new, which very often does not advance.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Coles Corner (04:48)
Hold back the night from us,
Cherish the light for us,
Don't let the shadows hold back the dawn.
Cold city lights glowing,
The traffic of life is flowing,
Out over the rivers and on into dark.
I'm going down town where there's music,
I'm going where voices fill the air,
Maybe there's someone waiting for me
With a smile and a flower in her hair
I'm going down town where there's people
The loneliness hangs in the air.
With no-one there real waiting for me,
No smile, no flower nowhere.
Cold city..................etc
Hold back ................etc
(Chorus)
(End on)
Hold back the night
02 Just Like the Rain (03:17)
Walkin' silent through the snow
Driftin' softly to your door
I'm comin' home
I'm comin' home
I feel so strange, I feel so weak
I've walked a world of empty streets
In search alone
I've searched alone
But you're still in my mind
You're still in my mind
And here's where the sound
Of my tears hits the ground
Just like the rain
Just like the rain
When we walked along the shore
My darkness shaded, all we saw
I was unkind
I was unkind
I feel so strange, I feel so weak
I've walked a world of empty streets
In search alone
I've searched alone
But you're still in my mind
You're still in my mind
And here's where the sound
Of my tears hits the ground
Just like the rain
Just like the rain
But you're still in my mind
You're still in my mind
And here's where the sound
Of my tears hits the ground
Just like the rain
Just like the rain
Just like the rain
Just like the rain
05 The Ocean (05:36)
You lead me down to the ocean
So lead me down by the ocean
Y'know it's been a long time, you always leave me tongue-tied
And all this time's for us, I love you just because
You lead me down to the ocean
The world is fine by the ocean
Y'know this time's for real, it helps the heart to heal
Y'know it breaks the seal of the talisman that harms
And so you look at me and need.. the space that means as much to me
So lead me down to the ocean
Our world is fine by the ocean
Y'know the way it is in life, it's so hard to live up to
So why are you still dressed in your mournin' suit? I assume, I assume
You'll lead me down, to the ocean
Don't leave me down by the ocean, the ocean
Here comes the wave, here comes the wave
Here comes the wave, down by the ocean
The ocean, the ocean, the ocean, the ocean [Repeat]
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